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In today’s UK Sunday Telegraph, an article titled: “US tactics condemned by British officers,” uses Nazi terminology to describe the US military’s behavior in Iraq. It’s in an article written by Sean Rayment, the newspaper’s defense correspondent, who quotes heavily from an unnamed senior British officer claiming that there is a growing sense of “unease and frustration” among the British high command. We’ll go into more detail about the report later. The fact that the British press has been denigrating the US in Iraq for being gung-ho cowboys and trigger-happy crazies is nothing new. Practically every newspaper and media network...

Bush is urged to talk to bin Laden GEORGE BUSH should open talks with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda around a negotiating table, according to Mo Mowlam, the former Northern Ireland Secretary who presided over the peace process in the Province. She said that Britain and the US were only acting as a “recruitment officer for the terrorists” by carrying out military campaigns in the Middle East. In a television interview to be broadcast on Easter Day, Ms Mowlam says that the hardline approach to the war on terrorism was counter-productive and Tony Blair and Mr Bush should instead open...

Brussels, Belgium – A display praising the merits of peacekeeping that cited the killing of native North Americans as the world's worst genocide shouldn't be considered a jab at the United States, Belgian defense officials said Thursday. Defense Ministry spokesman Gerard Vareng denied criticism that the display carried an anti-American message. The display, shown at the monument of the Unknown Soldier in Brussels this week, was meant to honor Belgian soldiers who died in humanitarian missions. It included a panel listing North America as the continent of the world's worst genocide with a death toll of 15 million, starting with...

Though Bush’s State of the Union speech occurred at 3am in Britain and 5am in Iraq, on Wolf Blitzer Reports on Wednesday afternoon CNN correspondents had no problem finding Britons and Iraqis angry about it. “Europeans find the President's talk about God and good and evil very scary,” sniffed Walter Rodgers before trumpeting how “analysts here say that alienation is not going to change until Mr. Bush leaves the White House.” Rodgers insisted that the alliance “has been badly shattered by this President, and by the unilateralist policy.” From Baghdad, Michael Holmes relayed: “The attitude very much, we don't know...

A senior MP provoked anger last night after claiming that she would consider becoming a suicide bomber if she was living in conditions faced by the Palestinians. Jenny Tonge, the former Liberal Democrat spokeswoman on international development, said that she did not condone the Palestinian bombers, but said she could "understand" their actions. Her comments, which came a week after Reem al-Riashi became the second Palestinian mother to carry out a suicide bombing, were immediately condemned as "sickening" by the Conservatives. Dr Tonge also faced a dressing down by Liberal Democrat whips over the comments to a campaign meeting at...

I have always admired Edward Luttwak, one of the clearest American thinkers in the strategy/security game, and I have nothing but contempt for the U.S. Homeland Security Department (Heimatsicherheitsabteilung, in the original German) and its ridiculous color-coded threat levels. So I started reading a recent article by the former on the latter with genuine pleasure, anticipating that Luttwak was going to condemn Homeland Security for its habit of running up the levels from puce to magenta and back down to mauve, shredding Americans' nerves with warnings nobody can respond to in a useful way, for no better reason than to...

Arrest over bomb joke on plane From correspondents in New York January 17, 2004 A HOLIDAYING French student was in a New York jail here awaiting a court appearance following his arrest over an aircraft bomb "joke". He left the plane at New York's Kennedy Airport after allegedly joking that he had put a bomb in the plane's toilet, court sources said. Frank Moulet, 27, was in custody in a floating detention centre called "The Boat" in Long Island Sound off the borough of The Bronx pending charges of making a "false scare". His girlfriend, arrested with him after they...

The $500 billion fire sale In a shattered postwar Iraq, there are rich pickings to be had - and for US businesses at least, it promises to be a risk-free bonanza. Naomi Klein joins those at a trade show jostling for a stake Saturday January 17, 2004 The Guardian It's 8.40am, and the Sheraton Hotel ballroom thunders with the sound of plastic explosives pounding against metal. No, this is not the Sheraton in Baghdad, it's the one in Arlington, Virginia. And it's not a real terrorist attack, it's a hypothetical one. The screen at the front of the room is...

DICKENS TO LE CARRÉ Smiley's (Anti-American) People By GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT Published: January 11, 2004 "Americans are cowards," Evelyn Waugh sneered. BATH, ENGLAND — Anyone can see what happened in Iraq. It was nothing more than a war of colonial conquest fought for oil, "dressed up as a crusade for Western life and liberty," and its authors were "a clique of war-hungry Judeo-Christian geopolitical fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America's post-9/11 psychopathy." These words are spoken in John Le Carré's new novel "Absolute Friends'' (Little, Brown, 2004). And although it is usually philistine and unfair to blame a novelist...

Bath, England – Anyone can see what happened in Iraq. It was nothing more than a war of colonial conquest fought for oil, "dressed up as a crusade for Western life and liberty," and its authors were "a clique of war-hungry Judeo-Christian geopolitical fantasists who hijacked the media and exploited America's post-9/11 psychopathy." These words are spoken in John Le Carré's new novel "Absolute Friends'' (Little, Brown, 2004). And although it is usually philistine and unfair to blame a novelist for what his fictional creations say, in this case the speaker expressing those opinions is plainly a point-of-view character —...

"If Europe had been present and united, I believe, we would not have seen the war on Iraq," Prodi said, adding "Then we would have managed to find a solution to preserve the peace."(in maybe another 15 years)

Rebranding Bush as man of peace Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington, Simon Tisdall and Nicholas Watt Saturday January 3, 2004 The Guardian (UK) The White House has retreated from its doctrine of regime change and pre-emptive military action and is returning to traditional diplomacy in an effort to repackage George Bush as a president for peace. Signs of the new strategy that have emerged in the past few weeks include: · North Korea, where authorities yesterday agreed to allow US inspectors to visit its nuclear complex next week. · Iran, where the US proposed, through UN channels, sending a high-level humanitarian...

US capitalism is as dynamic as ever. Unfortunately most of that effort has recently been directed towards bilking as many ordinary citizens as is humanly possible.

"It would be so unfair if there was another 9-11. [Ed.- OMC = World Trade Organisation] Chili = Chile